Benjamin Jealous quotes:

No person can maximize the American Dream on the minimum wage.

Civil marriage, like all civil rights provided by the government, must be provided equally to all Americans.

We really have to, as a country, recognize that school is where people get their identity not just as a scholar, or a future business person, but as a citizen. And we need to make sure that schools set them up for success as citizens.

Let us nurture the practice of family values, by embracing policies that value families.

The right to vote is the right upon which all of our rights are leveraged - and without which none can be protected.

I train my kids to dream really big and impossible dreams and to pursue them doggedly.

In the USA, it's harder for a black man with no criminal record to find a job than a white man with a criminal record, which is to say that race is actually a bigger factor than ex-felon status. But if you're both, it's almost impossible to find a job.

Racial profiling punishes innocent individuals for the past actions of those who look and sound like them. It misdirects crucial resources and undercuts the trust needed between law enforcement and the communities they serve. It has no place in our national discourse, and no place in our nation's police departments.

Let us invest less and less in war and tax cuts for the richest 1 percent, and more and more in jobs and schools for the other 99 percent.

As an American people, what is greatest about our history are the many times we have led this world away from hate, towards hope.

In this nation, the greatest of all nations, there are no second-class families. That is our great American conviction.

Growing up as a black kid with a white father who loves you, who affirms you, who was part of your life is fundamentally different than what black people in my family were subjected to in the 19th century or the 18th century. But unfortunately, it doesn't change the old racial order. I think we need to let the old racial order just stay where it is and not seek to improve upon it. Not try to create more racial categories, because all that does is it makes a race stick around longer.

The beauty of being black in American society is that black has always been an inclusive definition. White has always been an exclusive definition. I think one of the challenges for white people is to figure out how to have a more inclusive picture of who their families are, of who they are.

I was raised in a family where we were taught that the best thing you could do with your life was to really kind of push the cause of progress and justice and human rights forward.

It's a funny thing, in the US we all believe that we have a right to go to school. We have a right to a good education. And we don't. The U.S. Constitution contains no right for a child to go to school, let alone for a child to go to a good school. And yet, we know that if they don't go to a good school, they're less likely to be able to realize all that this country has to offer.

When you're smart on crime, you start off by recognizing that both the victim, first of all, the victim, but also the person who did the crime are both human.

When somebody says the best thing you can do is be tough, the best thing you can do is use your brute force, then we're selling ourselves short.

In order to bring down the incarceration rate, you've got to start with the beginning of life. You've got to make sure that parents and schools are prepared to prepare young people for success. You've got to deal with the next stage of life. You've got to make sure that people have the opportunity to work at a good job, they have access to good healthcare, and that they have the opportunity to build wealth over time.

Race is a lie built on a lie. The first lie is that people are different, somehow skin color or hair texture is more significant than eye color, or the shape of one's feet. The second lie built on top of that is that there's a hierarchy that more significant difference, the color showing up as brown on your skin rather than brown in your hair, or whatever, is somehow more significant and there's some sort of hierarchy. That the lighter you are, the straighter your hair, the better you are.